The great sale of the rat-catchers is to the shops supplying “private parties” with rats for the amusement of seeing them killed by dogs. With some “fast” men, one of these shopkeepers told me, it was a favourite pastime in their own rooms on the Sunday mornings. It is, however, somewhat costly if carried on extensively, as the retail charge from the shops is 6d. per rat. The price from the catcher to the dealer is from 2s. 6d. to 7s. the dozen. Rats, it appears, are sometimes scarce, and then the shopkeeper must buy, “to keep up his connection,” at enhanced cost. One large bird-seller, who sold also plain and fancy rats, white mice, and live hedgehogs, told me that he had, last winter, been compelled to give 7s. a dozen for his vermin and sell them at 6d. each.
The grand consumption of rats, however, is in Bunhill-row, at a public-house kept by a pugilist. A rat-seller told me that from 200 to 500 rats were killed there weekly, the weekly average being, however, only the former number; while at Easter and other holidays, it is not uncommon to see bills posted announcing the destruction of 500 rats on the same day and in a given time, admittance 6d. Dogs are matched at these and similar places, as to which kills the greatest number of these animals in the shortest time. I am told that there are forty such places in London, but in some only the holiday times are celebrated in this small imitation of the beast combats of the ancients. There is, too, a frequent abandonment of the trade in consequence of its “not paying,” and perhaps it may be fair to estimate that the average consumption of this vermin-game does not exceed, in each of these places, 20 a week, or 1040 in a year; giving an aggregate—over and above those consumed in private sport—of 52,000 rats in a year, or 1000 a week in public amusement alone.
To show the nature of the sport of rat-catching, I print the following bill, of which I procured two copies. The words and type are precisely the same in each, but one bill is printed on good and the other on very indifferent paper, as if for distribution among distinct classes. The concluding announcement, as to the precise moment at which killing will commence, reads supremely business-like:—
RATTING FOR THE MILLION!
A Sporting Gentleman, Who is a Staunch
Supporter of the destruction of these Vermin
WILL GIVE A
GOLD REPEATER
WATCH,
TO BE KILLED FOR BY
DOGS Under 13¾lbs. Wt.
15 RATS EACH!
TO COME OFF AT JEMMY MASSEY’S,
KING’S HEAD,
COMPTON ST., SOHO,
On Tuesday, May 20, 1851.
☞ To be Killed in a Large Wire Pit. A chalk Circle to be drawn in the centre for the Second.—Any Man touching Dog or Rats, or acting in any way unfair his dog will be disqualified.
To go to Scale at Half past 7 Killing to Commence At Half past 8 Precisely.
A dealer in live animals told me that there were several men who brought a few dozens of rats, or even a single dozen, from the country; men who were not professionally rat-catchers, but worked in gardens, or on farms, and at their leisure caught rats. Even some of the London professional rat-catchers work sometimes as country labourers, and their business is far greater, in merely rat-catching or killing, in the country than in town. From the best information I could command, there are not fewer than 2000 rats killed, for sport, in London weekly, or 104,000 a year, including private and public sport, for private sport in this pursuit goes on uninterruptedly; the public delectation therein is but periodical.
This calculation is of course exclusive of the number of rats killed by the profession, “on the premises,” when these men are employed to “clear the premises of vermin.”
There are, I am told, 100 rat-catchers resorting, at intervals, to London, but only a fourth of that number can be estimated as carrying on their labours regularly in town, and their average earnings, I am assured, do not exceed 15s. a week; being 975l. a year for London merely.
These men have about them much of the affected mystery of men who are engaged on the turf. They have their “secrets,” make or pretend to “make their books” on rat fights and other sporting events; are not averse to drinking, and lead in general irregular lives. They are usually on intimate terms with the street dog-sellers (who are much of the same class). Many of the rat-catchers have been brought up in stables, and there is little education among them. When in London, they are chiefly to be found in Whitechapel, Westminster, and Kent-street, Borough; the more established having their own rooms; the others living in the low lodging-houses. None of them remain in London the entire year.